KMtffotar 


THE  EXTBRNAL  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROSPERITY  OF  OUR  COLLEGES, 


AN 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS, 


DELIVERED   JULY   30th,    184*5. 


BY  HENRY  SMITH, 
President  of  Marietta  College, 


PUBLISHED   BY   THE   TRUSTEES. 


MARIETTA: 

FRINTED  AT  THE  INTELLIGENCER  OFFIC.n. 
1847. 


(_ 


i  3  \^ 


est 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS, 


The  philosopher  Guizot,  in  seeking  a  definition  of  the  term  civili- 
zation, places  it  in  the  idea  of  progress.  By  a  series  of  historical 
illustrations,  he  establishes  the  position  that  this  progress  is  two-fold. 
In  the  first  place,  civilization  implies  the  idea  of  a  progress  in  society; 
in  the  outward  physical  organization  of  the  social  state;  a  progressive 
melioration  of  the  condition  of  the  relations  existing  between  man 
and  man.  This  is  one  element  of  civilization,  to  which,  however,  he 
says,  if  the  idea  were  confined,  a  community  of  civilized  men  would 
resemble  the  occupants  of  a  bee-hive.  Their  great  business  would 
be  the  production  and  equitable  distribution  of  the  means  of  life. 
But  civilization,  he  maintains,  includes  another  idea;  the  progress  of 
individual  man;  the  development  of  his  faculties  as  an  intellectual, 
emotive,  immortal  being.  The  great  problem  of  human  welfare  is 
the  harmonious  combination  of  these  two  elements  of  civilized  life, 
social  progress  and  individual  development.  If  we  place  them  in 
contrast,  and  compare  their  value,  as  bearing  upon  human  happiness, 
the  verdict  of  mankind  will  pronounce  in  favor  of  the  latter,  as  more 
radical,  more  enduring,  more  splendid,  more  intimately  bound  up 
with  the  higher  destinies  of  the  race  Bearing  in  mind  now  the  two 
great  elements  which  this  analysis  presents,  if  we  propose  to  our- 
selves the  question,  what  at  the  present  moment  is  the  condition  of 
American  civilization,  we  shall  be  brought  directly  to  the  main  point 
in  which  our  ill-wishers  beyond  the  seas  attack  us.  They  cannot 
affirm  that  there  is  not  social  progress  in  America.  That  calumny 
almost  every  square  mile  of  our  territory  would  refute.  The  buzz 
and  rattle  of  New  England  machinery,  the  flocks  which  like  snows 
in  summer  whiten  her  mountains,  the  lowing  herds  and  varied  indus- 
try of  the  Middle  States,  the  cotton  fields  and  sugar  plantations  of 
the  South,  the  golden  eared  and  wide  waving  harvests  of  the  West; 
the  net-work  of  rail-ways  threading  our  valleys  and  climbing  our 
mountains,  the  whistle  of  our  steamers  ascending  every  river,  our 
mercantile  navy  converting  our  sea-ports  into  mimic  forests  and  pen- 
etrating with  the  products  of  our  industry  almost  every  harbor  on 


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the  globe,  all  bear  testimony  to  our  social  progress;  a  testimony  vis 
ible  to  the  world,  and  too  conspicuous  to  be  denied.  But  if  transat- 
lantic writers  are  to  be  credited,  alas  for  the  higher  element  of  civil- 
ization in  the  new-born  republic! 

Fifty  years  ago,  one  of  the  most  ingenious  of  the  ethical  writers  of 
England,  in  an  argument  for  church  establishments,  maintained  that 
it  would  be  disastrous  to  religion  to  cast  it  upon  the  voluntary  support 
of  the  people.  It  would  convert  preaching  into  a  mode  of  begging; 
pulpit  eloquence  into  an  histrionic  exhibition,  and  the  minister  him- 
self into  a  mere  caterer  for  the  popular  appetite,  watching  more 
closely  for  the  increase  of  his  subscription  list  than  for  the  salvation 
of  souls.  Within  the  last  few  years,  one  of  the  most  popular  histo- 
rians of  the  present  century  has  formally  recorded  it  as  a  fact  that 
this  reasoning  has  found  its  realization  in  the  free  States  of  America. 
"Already"  says  Alison,  "the  ruinous  dependence  of  the  ministers  of 
all  denominations  upon  the  voluntary  support  of  their  flocks,  has  be- 
come painfully  conspicuous.  Religion  has  descended  from  its  high 
functions  of  denouncing  and  correcting  national  vices,  and,  with 
some  honorable  exceptions,  become  little  more  than  a  re-echo  of 
public  opinion."  Here  then  is  our  religious  character  demolished  at 
a  stroke.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  delineations  of  our  intel- 
lectual character  equally  unflattering.  Alas  then,  if  such  represen- 
tations are  to  be  trusted,  for  the  second  and  greatest  element  of  civil- 
ization; alas  for  the  progress  of  individual  man  in  America! 

Intellect  is  dwarfed.  Her  scholars  are  mere  sciolists.  Where 
are  her  philosophy,  her  poetry,  her  history,  her  fine  arts]  She  has 
no  literature,  or  if  she  has,  it  is  a  superficial  one.  Her  muse  only 
limps  through  the  crazy  iambics  in  the  poet's  corner  of  the  newspa- 
pers; or  if  there  be  a  poet  who  writes  passable  verses  he  received  an 
European  education.  Her  philosophy  buries  its  leaden  burden  be- 
tween the  uncut  leaves  of  the  magazines.  Her  history  is  a  mere 
patch-work  of  European  shreds  and  clippings.  Her  eloquence  ex- 
pends its  windy  emptiness  upon  the  stump. 

The  natural  affections  are  dwarfed  in  America.  The  American 
in  middle  life  has  forgotten  the  home  of  his  childhood.  You  will 
never  hear  him  saying,  "  I  remember,  I  remember  the  house  where  I 
was  born."  "  The  old  oaken  bucket"  which  hung  in  his  father's 
well;  the  "deep-tangled  wild  wood"  which  skirted  his  farm;  "the 
wide-spreading  elm"  which  shaded  his  dwelling, — these  things  have 
no  charm  for  him.  Ever  anticipating  an  emigration,  his  very  family 
pictures  he  leaves  unframed,  lest,  when  with  the  other  household 
scuff  they  come  under  the  hammer,  he  should  suffer  loss.    He  is 

i 


nothing  but  an  kt  agricultural  nomad,"  a  mere  migratory  adventurer 
in  quest  of  the  "almighty  dollar." 

Religious  sentiment  is  dwarfed  in  America.  Religion  is  an  affair 
of  dollars  and  cents.  Where  are  her  moss-grown  cathedrals,  her 
time-honored  churches,  her  bench  of  spiritual  lords,  her  arch-dea- 
cons, her  advowsons,  her  fat  benefices,  her  small  livings,  her  par- 
ishes, her  vicars,  her  curates,  her  predial  tithes'?  All  wanting.  The 
state  has  proscribed  Christianity,  and  Christianity  has  abandoned  the 
state.  Religion  has  become  a  mere  individual  affair.  Her  altars 
are  desecrated.  Her  house  is  left  unto  her  desolate.  Her  votaries 
have  become  sons  of  Belial  and  her  ministers  priests  of  Mammon. 

To  such  attacks  upon  American  character  it  may  not  be  essential 
that  we  furnish  a  written  reply.  It  is  essential  to  our  own  well- 
being,  essential  to  the  progress  of  free  principles,  essential  to  the 
fulfilment  of  the  hopes  of  the  friends  of  liberty  throughout  the  globe, 
that  we  live  the  slander  down.  The  orb  of  human  freedom  has  been 
too  long  in  rising  to  be  thrust  down  again  by  American  hands. 
Longing  eyes  watched  for  its  appearing  during  a  weary  night  of 
centuries.  At  length  the  gray  twilight  is  seen;  next  the  morning 
blushes;  then  the  clouds  kindle  and  burn  before  the  brightness  of  its 
coming.  Behold  in  these  progressive  stages  of  illumination,  the  pro- 
gress of  liberty  in  the  thirteenth,  the  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies; in  the  Magna  Charta  of  Runnemede,  the  Reformation  of  Lu- 
ther, and  that  series  of  events,  political  and  religious,  which  found 
their  consummation  in  the  Revolution  of  1688.  One  century  more; 
and  the  broad  disc  reveals  its  full  orbed  glory  above  the  summit  of 
the  mountains.  That  orb  is  the  sun,  not  of  American  Independence 
merely;  it  is  the  sun  of  constitutional  liberty,  of  religious  toleration, 
of  popular  intelligence,  of  emancipated  mind.  Seventy  years  have 
elapsed  since  it  passed  within  the  circle  of  vision  to  the  people  of 
this  country;  it  now  begins  to  pour  its  splendors  upon  the  opening 
eyelids  of  awakened  and  universal  man.  No  power  on  earth  can 
eclipse  its  brightness  but  the  fatuity  of  the  very  people  whom  its 
beams  first  blessed. 

I  have  referred  to  the  slanders  of  transatlantic  writers  upon  Amer- 
ican character.  Slanders  they  doubtless  are.  And  yet  slanders  may 
reveal  to  a  wise  man  some  latent  weakness  of  character  to  be  cor- 
rected, some  infelicitous  tendency  of  temperament  to  be  checked 
which  had  before  escaped  his  notice.  For  a  season  we  are  put  in 
trust  by  Providence  with  a  liberty  which  may  work  out  the  highest 
well-being  of  the  race.  If  it  prove  in  our  hands  a  liberty  which  pam- 
pers the  body,  and  starves  the  soul,  let  us  understand,  this  is  not  the 


G 

liberty  for  which  the  heart  of  humanity  yearns.  That  liberty  is  not 
the  freedom  of  the  animal  to  pursue  his  pleasures.  It  is  the  freedom 
of  the  man  to  pursue  his  happiness.  It  is  the  freedom  of  mind  to 
investigate  truth.  It  is  freedom  to  think,  not  to  ruminate ;  freedom 
to  worship  God,  not  to  break  his  bands  asunder  and  to  cast  away  his 
cords.  It  is  the  liberty  which  supplies  not  merely  the  conditions  of 
physical  well-being,  but  the  conditions  also  of  spiritual  development. 
These  conditions  are  comprehended  in  the  two  words  Education, 
Religion.  Of  that  element  of  civilization,  which  the  philosopher, 
whom  I  have  quoted,  denominates  the  progress  of  individual  man,  in 
distinction  from  social  progress,  these  are  the  two  great  roots.  The 
law  of  custom  and  the  proprieties  of  the  occasion  limit  my  remarks 
to  the  former  of  these  two  topics.  There  are,  I  need  not  inform  you, 
in  this  country,  four  well  defined  classes  of  institutions,  almost  uni- 
versally recognized  as  essential  instruments  in  the  work  of  popular 
education;  Common  Schools,  Academies  (male  and  female,)  Colleges, 
and  professional  Seminaries.  You  will  expect  me  to  confine  my  re- 
marks, in  the  main,  to  the  third  of  these  four  classes.  To  insist 
upon  the  necessity  of  Colleges  in  the  work  of  general  education,  would, 
before  this  audience,  be  a  superfluous  task.  It  is  admitted.  To 
describe  their  internal  economy,  and  to  attempt  a  vindication  of  the 
claims  of  the  several  branches  of  study  pursued  in  them,  would  be  a 
work,  which  has  been  so  often  and  so  ably  executed,  that  in  my 
hands,  at  least,  it  would  prove  a  theme  barren  of  interest.  To  assert 
and  maintain,  at  this  day,  the  position  that  a  College,  in  order  to  suc- 
cess, and  of  course  to  usefulness,  must  be  conducted  upon  religious 
principles,  would  be  to  assert  and  maintain  a  truism.  I  propose 
rather  to  direct  your  attention  to  some  of  the  external  conditions  which 
are  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  our  Collegiate  Institutions. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  essential  to  their  prosperity  that  they  find 
favor  with  the  people  at  large.  They  spring  from  the  people.  They 
belong  to  the  people.  They  are  designed  to  aid  in  securing  the  in- 
telligence and  happiness  of  the  people.  And  without  a  warm  place  in 
the  affections  of  the  people,  they  are  comparatively  powerless  for  good. 
Whatever  may  be  true  of  monarchies,  in  this  country  it  is  true,  that 
no  great  public  interest  can  be  sustained  in  opposition  to  the  popular 
will.  Public  opinion,  wTe  must  admit  it,  is  the  last  appeal.  It  is 
omnipotent.  You  have  heard  the  dictum  of  an  English  casuist,  that 
the  interests  of  religion  would  be  fatally  compromised  by  casting  it 
upon  popular  sympathy  for  support.  You  have  seen  the  picture 
drawn  by  an  English  historian  of  our  religious  condition.  Do  you 
admit  this  reasoning  to  be  just]    Do  you  recognize  this  picture  of 


religious  society  in  America  to  be  true?  If  in  the  reasoning  ol  thi 
moralist  we  can  detect  a  flaw,  will  it  not  be  found  in  the  assumption 
that  popular  opinion  must  of  necessity  be  wrong?  must  of  necessity 
be  depraved  and  perverted  ?  that  it  will  positively  require  the  minister 
to  sow  pillows  to  all  arm-holes;  that  in  the  first  place  it  will 
station  a  watch  at  the  mast  head  to  descry  the  dangers  which  threaten 
the  vessel,  and  then  absolutely  force  him  to  cry  "  all's  well,"  what- 
ever tempest  thickens,  and  whatever  breakers  roar  1  If  we  pronounce 
the  picture  of  the  historian  a  caricature  and  no  likeness,  shall  we 
not  assign  as  the  reason  of  it,  the  blindness  of  prejudice  mistaking 
an  accident  for  an  essence,  an  incidental  perversion  of  public  opinion, 
for  its  inherent  and  total  depravity]  But  whether  the  validity  of  this 
reasoning,  and  the  fidelity  of  this  picture  be  affirmed  or  denied,  the 
power  of  public  opinion,  in  this  country,  remains  a  "fixed  fact." 
We  cannot  deny  it  if  we  would;  I  trust  we  shall  ever  have  occasion 
to  say,  we  would  not  if  we  could.  If  it  be  asserted  that  the  fate  of 
religion  in  this  country  is  yet  to  be  decided,  that  the  experiment  is 
yet  in  progress  and  the  problem  yet  unsolved,  it  still  remains  true 
that  the  chief  agent  in  the  experiment,  the  radical  element  in  the 
problem,  is  public  opinion.  And  what  is  true  of  our  national  religion 
is  true  of  our  every  great  national  interest,  is  true  of  our  national 
intelligence.  Public  opinion  is  the  ruling  planet  in  our  national 
horoscope.  To  employ  the  language  of  judicial  astrology,  it  hath 
entered  and  its  stands,  flaming  and  dominant,  in  the  "  cusp"  of  our 
"house  of  life."  And  be  its  influence  baleful  or  benign,  it  is  our 
destiny  to  work  out  the  problem  of  our  national  existence  beneath  it, 
It  has  often  been  said  that  the  cause  of  Education  in  this  country 
is  popular.  The  proposition  is  a  very  general  one,  and  the  terms 
perhaps  not  always  perfectly  well  defined  in  the  mind  of  him  who 
makes  it.  The  cause  of  Education,  what  is  meant  by  it?  The  cause 
of  Common  Schools'?  or  of  Academies'?  or  of  Colleges?  or  of  insti- 
tutions for  imparting  legal,  medical  or  theological  instruction?  or 
all  these  together?  The  cause  of  Education,  in  this  country,  is  pop- 
ular. This  is  a  great  country.  It  stretches  through  twenty-four 
degrees  of  latitude,  and  sixty  of  longitude.  It  is  therefore  certainly 
not  impossible  that  a  subject,  the  discussion  of  which  upon  the  banks 
of  Charles's  river  would  strike  one  of  the  most  sensitive  chords  of 
popular  sympathy;  would  summon  the  farmer  from  his  plough,  the 
mechanic  from  his  workshop,  the  merchant  from  his  counting  room, 
the  clergyman  from  his  study,  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  legisla- 
tor, from  his  brief,  his  professional  calls,  his  senatorial  deliberations, 
may  enkindle  but  small  enthusiasm,  and  secure  but  a  meagre  "mass 


8 

meeting,"  on  the  banks  of  the  Muskingum,  the  Wabash  or  the  Illinois. 
The  cause  of  Education  is  popular.     But  what  is  popularity?     In  the 
sense  of  the  proposition,  doubtless,  favor  with  the  people.     This, 
however,  is  a  predicate  which  admits  of  degrees.     The  pendulum  | 
may  swing  through  a  large  arc.     The  voice  of  popular  favor  may  ; 
have  every  variety  of  pitch  and  of  strength.     There  is  surely  some  j 
little  difference  between  that  deep-toned  and  jubilant  superlative  of  | 
it,  which,  for  example,  rang  in  our  ears  during  the  political  campaign  \ 
of  1840,  and  that  small  chinking  note,  that  feeble,  questionable  sound, 
sometimes  reaching  the  tympanum  of  the  ear  and  sometimes  inaudi- 
ble, which,  issuing  from  the  collision  of  half-dimes  at  the  bottom  of  a 
circulating   charity  box,  marks  the  sub-positive  degree  of  popular 
favor.     In  what  sense  of  the  terms  is  this  proposition  true?  and,  in 
what  sense  of  them  will  the  people  make  it  true?     Assuming  that 
we  are  a  christian  people,  and  that  we  possess  a  free  constitution,  an 
answer  to  these  two  questions,  and  to  no  third,  would  the  student  of 
political  history  require  to  enable  him  to  sketch  our  condition  in  re- 
spect to  the  highest  element  of  civilization  and  to  predict  our  destiny. 
To  such  a  people  there  are  therefore  no  two  questions,  which  can  by 
any  possibility  be  propounded  of  equal  magnitude,  no  two  questions 
the  answers  to  which  involve  a  significance  so  vital  and  so  far  reach- 
ing, as  the  questions :  In  what  sense  ought  Education  to  be  popular 
amongst  us?  and:  In  what  sense  shall  it  be? 

Without  attempting  to  decide  the  question,  in  what  sense  of  the 
terms  Education  is  popular  in  the  country  at  large,  let  us  narrow  the 
field  of  vision.  It  is  a  more  practical  question  to  inquire,  in  what 
sense  it  is  popular  in  Ohio.  Are  Common  Schools  popular  in  Ohio? 
Doubtless,  if  by  popularity  is  meant  a  general  acknowledgment  of 
their  importance.  If  popularity  implies  that  the  people  have  made 
adequate  provision  to  sustain  them,  that  they  have  digested  a  com- 
prehensive and  thorough  system  of  Common  School  Education  of 
vitality  and  power  enough  to  secure  the  simplest  rudiments  of  Edu- 
cation to  the  whole  mass  of  our  citizens,  the  proposition  may  be  more 
than  doubted.  There  are  at  the  present  moment,  as  appears  from 
the  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  to  the  last  Legislature,  not  less 
than  40,000  of  our  citizens,  over  20  years  of  age,  (12,000  of  whom  are 
exercising  all  the  rights  of  freemen,)  who  can  neither  read  nor  write. 
If  it  is  said  that  considering  the  influx  of  foreign  population  this 
fact  does  not  infer  a  defect  of  popular  interest  in  the  subject,  another 
fact  from  the  same  document  may  be  adduced  in  point.  There  are 
in  this  State  not  only  40,000  persons  over  20  years  of  age  who  can- 
not read  and  write,  but  there  are  nearly  150,000  under  that  age,  and 


within  the  limits  of  the  provisions  of  the  law,  "  entirely  illiterate.'* 
Commenting  upon  these  facts,  the  secretary  remarks,  "were  there 
as  many  thousands  in  the  midst  of  us  who  through  poverty  or  imbe- 
cility should  pass  their  lives  without  any  improvement  in  their  vital 
powers;  who  should,  in  the  language  of  scripture,  'have  eyes  but  see 
not,  ears  but  hear  not,'  their  senses  all  torpid,  their  limbs  nerveless 
and  incapable  of  muscular  movement,  all  but  lifeless  and  yet  alive, 
what  should  we  think  of  such  existence,  of  such  being'?  And  yet 
that  which  in  debasement,  if  done  to  the  body,  surpasses  even  our 
imagination,  is  done  by  individuals  and  the  community,  and  permitted 
to  be  done  by  civilized  governments,  by  ourselves,  under  the  full 
blaze  of  Christianity,  to  the  immortal  mind,  to  those  lofty  capacities 
which,  in  their  nature  and  destiny,  as  far  exceed  the  physical  powTers, 
as  mind  excels  matter,  spirit,  clay,  heaven,  earth."  I  should  re- 
joice,had  I  time  to  quote  more  largely  from  this  interesting  document. 
The  picture  which  it  presents  of  dilapidated  school-houses,  incom- 
petent teachers,  wasted  funds,  and  official  faithlessness,  are  suffi- 
ciently humiliating  to  our  state  pride.  It  ought  to  be  published  in 
every  newspaper,  and  placed  in  every  family  which  can  read  in  the 
state.  And  yet  its  cogent  reasonings,  and  its  powerful  appeals, 
failed,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  to  secure  any  action  in  the  body  to  wThich 
it  was  addressed.  Thus  much  for  our  common  schools.  Now  let 
us  ask,  are  academies  popular  in  Ohio? — They  are  certainly  toler- 
ated. As  they  do  not  fall  within  the  provisions  of  the  law  reg- 
ulating the  state  school  funds,  there  are  no  statistics,  so  far  as  I 
know,  to  enable  us  to  ascertain  their  number  or  their  condition. — 
There  are  preparatory  schools  connected  with  all  our  colleges,  and 
here  and  there  a  private  high-school,  owing  its  existence  to  the  en- 
terprise of  some  adventurous  teacher,  and  depending  upon  that  en- 
terprise for  continued  life.  Regularly  incorporated  academies,  aside 
from  these,  possessed  of  funds  and  apparatus  sufficient  to  ensure  use- 
fulness, or  even  continued  vitality,  I  will  not  say  there  are  none  in 
the  state,  for  there  are ;  but  they  certainly  may  be  classed  among  the 
rarcB  aves  of  Ohio.  Let  us  pass  to  the  third  class  of  educational  institu- 
tions, and  I  do  not  propose  to  carry  the  inquiry  further; — are  colleges 
popular  in  Ohio?  If  we  may  judge  from  their  multiplicity,  most  as- 
suredly, yes.  If  multiplicity  implies  popularity,  Ohio  outpeers  New- 
England  in  lavishing  its  favors  upon  colleges.  It  does  not  even  lag 
far  behind  its  sister  state  of  Pennsylvania.  The  facility  with  which 
your  literary  projector  can  manufacture  a  college  puts  to  the  blush 
all  the  other  wonders  of  this  age  of  steam  and  magnetism.     It  re- 


10 

minds  one  of  the  exploits  of  the  Horatian  hero  in  poetry,  who  could 
turn  off  his  two  hundred  verses  in  an  hour: 

Ego  poemata  pango 
Occupet  postremum  scabies;  mihi  turpe  rclinqui  est, 
Et  quod  non  didici,  sane  nescire  fateri. 

The  purple  rag  of  a  title  flaunts  in  the  distance  and  beckons  him 
onward,  the  curse  of  obscurity  urges  him  behind,  he  waves  his 
magic  quill,  and  lo !  a  college  armed  with  the  Vulcanian  panoply  of 
a  state  charter,  leaps  from  his  laboring  brain,  full-grown  like  Pallas 
from  the  head  of  Zeus.  If  you  visit  the  locality  indicated  by  its 
style,  expecting  to  find  the  ancient  appendages  of  such  institutions, 
buildings,  books,  apparatus,  teachers,  you  are  laboring  under  a  sad 
mistake,  a  most  vulgar  error  in  regard  to  the  essence  of  a  college. 
These  things  are  only  its  accidents.  If  they  should  be  found  want- 
ing, what  then?  Has  it  not  a  charter?  Suppose  it  has  no  "local 
habitation,"  what  is  that  to  the  point]  Has  it  not  a  "name?"  And 
has  not  the  echo  of  that  name  reverberated  throughout  the  land!  Has 
not  the  trumpet  of  its  fame  waxed  long  and  loud  in  the  newspapers'? 
Sadly  infidel  indeed  must  be  the  tendencies  of  your  mind  if  you  still 
doubt  its  existence.  The  very  style  by  which  it  is  denominated,  the 
very  names  of  its  board  of  trustees,  the  very  amount  of  funds  which 
they  are  authorised  to  hold  wThen  they  shall  have  obtained  them,  as 
well  as  that  most  important  provision  that  these  funds  are  never  to 
be  perverted  to  the  purposes  of  banking,  behold,  are  not  all  these 
things  plainly  written  down  in  the  book  of  the  chronicles  of  the 
legislature  of  Ohio! 

If  adhering  to  your  antiquated  views  touching  the  constituents  of 
a  college,  you  ask  the  questions,  are  those  institutions  in  Ohio  which 
possess  them  popular?  Do  the  people  take  pride  in  them?  Do 
they  secure  to  their  children  the  advantages  which  they  proffer?  I 
fear  the  answer  would  not  be  as  flattering  as  we  could  wish.  It  is 
true  a  certain  portion  of  our  citizens  feel  strong  interest  in  them,  and 
have  taxed  themselves  deeply  to  sustain  them.  The  burden  however 
has  as  yet  fallen  not  lightly  upon  the  many,  but  heavily  upon  the  few. 
There  are,  I  believe,  but  two  or  three  colleges  in  actual  operation  in 
the  state,  which  would  not  be  compelled,  if  the  hand  of  charity  were 
withdrawn,  to  disband  their  faculties  and  to  close  their  doors.  And 
of  these,  one  was  endowed  by  Congress,  and  another  by  accident,  or 
rather  by  one  of  those  providences  to  which  men  give  this  name. 

If  again  the  question  of  popularity  is  decided  by  patronage,  the 
case  will  stand  thus.  The  New  England  States  and  Ohio  may  now 
be  said  to  be  equal  in  population,     New  England  has  more  than  two 


11 

thousand  undergraduates.  In  a  regular  college  course,  I  should  think 
iive  hundred  a  large  estimate  for  Ohio. 

Such  is  something  like  a  picture,  I  do  not  say  of  the  present  intel- 
ligence of  Ohio,  hut  of  the  foundation  upon  which  her  future  intelli- 
gence is  to  be  upreared;  of  that  system  of  means  to  which  is  en- 
trusted the  perpetuation  and  development  of  the  highest  attribute  of 
civilization  within  her  borders.  It  is  a  Serbonian  swamp.  It  is  a 
continent  of  chaos,  which  reminds  us  of  that  "  boggy  Syrtis,  neither 
sea  nor  good  dry  land,"  which  the  fallen  angel  of  the  Paradise  Lost 
met  in  his  perilous  journey  from  darkness  up  to  the  light.  And  an 
energy  of  intellect  in  a  better  cause  not  totally  dissimilar  to  his,  is 
manifested  by  the  adventurous  stripling,  who  from  many  a  county  in 
the  state  conceives  and  executes  the  difficult  enterprise  of  climbing 
to  the  heights  of  mind — 

"  Nigh  foundered  on  he  fares, 
"  Treading  the  rude  consistence,  half  on  foot, 
"Half  flying;  behoves  him  now  both  oar  and  sail." 

If  a  remedy  be  demanded,  it  will  be  found  in  the  prosperity  of  our 
colleges,  and  the  prosperity  of  our  colleges  will  be  found  in  the 
favor  of  the  people.  To  secure  that  favor,  it  is  necessary  only  that 
the  claims  of  colleges  be  discussed,  investigated,  understood.  The 
relations  of  colleges  to  the  progress  and  welfare  of  society,  and  to 
the  progress  of  individual  man,  must  be  thoroughly  canvassed  and 
settled  in  the  popular  mind.  Society  is  bound  together  by  the  mu- 
tual wants  of  its  members.  Most  beautifully  does  Plato,  in  the 
Socratic  dialogue  of  the  Republic,  illustrate  this  dependence.  Upon 
this  basis  he  builds  up  his  ideal  city.  He  reasons  thus.  The  most 
pressing  of  human  wants  is  that  of  food.  '-'Hunger  is  insolent  and 
must  be  fed."  The  next  is  clothing.  The  next  is  lodging.  The 
smallest  commonwealth  then  must  have  four  members,  a  husband- 
man, a  weaver,  a  shoemaker,  a  mason.  Shall  each  supply  his  own 
wants  in  all  these  particulars'?  That  is  savage  life.  Shall  each  de- 
vote himself  to  a  particular  branch  of  industry,  and  perfecting  his 
skill  in  it,  exchange  the  products  of  his  industry  for  those  of  his  com- 
panions* That  is  the  germ  of  civilization.  And  mark  what  it  im- 
plies. As  skill  advances,  the  husbandman  wants  oxen  and  ploughs 
and  spades,  and  other  implements  of  agriculture.  The  weaver  will 
need  not  only  a  supply  of  textile  materials,  but  distaffs  and  spindles 
and  looms  and  shuttles  and  all  the  implements  of  his  art.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  mason.  The  same  of  the  shoemaker.  Their  commodities 
moreover  must  be  exchanged,  without  trenching  upon  their  time.  The 
city  waxes  in  population.     It  has  joiners,  and  smiths,  and  herdsmen, 


12 

and  shepherds,  and  merchants.  These  again  have  their  wants  to  he 
supplied.  The  city  now  begins  to  swarm  with  inhabitants.  Prop- 
erty accumulates.  Men  become  luxurious  and  must  have  physicians. 
They  are  avaricious  and  must  have  laws  and  magistrates.  They 
engage  in  war  and  must  have  defenders.  And  if  those  who  engage 
in  the  several  vocations  are  to  be  skillful  and  expert  so  that  the  in- 
terests of  the  whole  may  be  best  subserved  by  their  services,  they 
must  be  trained  and  instructed  in  their  several  arts.  The  city  now 
has  its  cooks  and  victuallers,  and  barbers  and  hair  dressers,  and  nurses, 
and  undertakers,  and  pedagogues,  and  tutors  and  instructors,  and 
artists  and  poets  and  philosophers.  Such  is  something  like  a  picture 
of  the  web  of  a  civilized  society  woven  by  the  philosopher  of  Sunium, 
in  his  effort  to  investigate  and  illustrate  the  principle  of  justice.  It 
coheres  throughout.  Take  hold  of  it  by  either  side  and  you  move 
the  whole.  The  law  of  mutual  dependence  binds  it  together.  It  is, 
in  this  respect,  a  picture  of  every  civilized  community.  "  All  the  arts," 
says  the  great  orator  of  Roman  antiquity,  "which  appertain  to  civili- 
zation have  a  certain  common  vinculum."  This  is  the  vinculum.  It 
is  the  law  of  mutual  dependence.  Sever  the  bond  where  you  will  and 
the  entire  unity  suffers.  Let  the  philosopher  say  to  the  husbandman, 
I  have  no  need  of  thee,  or  the  husbandman  to  the  philosopher  I  have 
no  need  of  thee.  You  shall  find  in  the  event  a  hungry  philosopher 
and  a  ragged  husbandman.  What  can  be  a  more  useless  suffix  to 
society  that  a  poet  1  And  yet  in  the  very  oration  from  which  I  have 
quoted  the  sentiment  of  the  great  Roman  orator,  he  affirms  that  he 
owed  the  skill  in  speaking,  by  which  he  had  so  often  aided  the  suffer- 
ing and  rescued  the  persecuted,  the  mental  power  by  which  he  de- 
livered his  country  from  the  machinations  of  conspiracy  and  dignified 
the  annals  of  her  literature  with  some  of  the  noblest  productions  of 
the  mind,  to  the  early  training  which  he  received  at  the  hands  of 
his  teacher,  the  poet  Archias. 

If  this  bond  of  mutual  dependence  in  a  civilized  state  be  analysed, 
its  main  constituent  will  be  expressed  by  the  term  knowledge. — 
Knowledge,  knowledge  acquired  by  division  of  labor,  by  application 
to  particular  pursuits  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  a  state.  The  diffusion 
of  it  is  not  essential.  In  a  despotism  there  must  be  knowledge,  but 
it  may  be  knowledge  "  cabined,  cribbed,  confined,"  parceled  out  in 
castes  and  stereotyped  forages.  "  Ne  sutor  ultra  crepid am  "  may 
be  literally  applied  to  it.  The  shoemaker  to  his  last,  and  the  tailor 
to  his  goose.  To  represent  truly  the  bond  of  union  in  a  highly  civ- 
ilized and  especially  in  a  free  state,  we  must  abandon  the  figure  of  a 
web.  The  idea  of  diffusion  now  becomes  essential.  Our  web  must  be 


IS 

converted  into  a  plexus  of  blood-vessels,  into  a  sanguineous  system  of 
heart  and  arteries  and  veins.  Such  an  apparatus  is  found  in  a  sys- 
tem of  popular  education.  The  college  is  its  heart.  Neglect  this, 
cramp  it,  starve  it,  and  your  labor  upon  the  extremities  is  thrown 
away.  They  will  perish,  do  what  you  may.  With  a  change  of  a 
single  word  to  prevent  misapprehension,  and  with  no  change  of  sense, 
I  can  quote,  strong  as  they  are,  with  a  perfect  confidence  in  their 
correctness,  the  remarks  upon  this  point  of  one  of  the  most  able,  and 
ardent  friends  of  popular  education  in  the  West. 

k*The  college  has  ever  been  the  friend  and  nursery  of  common 
schools.  In  modern  times,  whenever  the  college  has  flourished  un- 
trammelled and  unrestricted  by  jealous,  arbitrary  authority,  there  the 
common  school  has  taken  root  and  prospered  also.  The  fact  is  no- 
torious, indisputable  and  undisputed.  In  no  country,  at  this  day,  do 
we  behold  the  slightest  approach  to  a  good  common  school  system, 
except  where  the  college  is  honored  and  liberally  sustained.  Scot- 
land, Prussia,  Germany,  Holland,  New  England  and  New  York  may 
serve  as  proof  and  comment.  I  hold  the  attempt  to  create  and  foster 
common  schools,  without  the  aid  of  the  college,  to  be  utterly  vain 
and  nugatory.     It  cannot  be  done." 

In  the  second  place,  colleges  require  as  a  condition  of  their  highest 
prosperity,  the  fostering  care  of  the  legislature. 

No  one  subject,  at  this  day,  in  this  state,  more  imperatively  de- 
mands investigation,  calm,  clear-sighted,  patriotic  investigation, 
than  the  relation,  actual  and  desirable,  of  the  legislature  to  colle- 
giate institutions.  These  institutions  are  the  nuclei  around  which 
cluster  all  the  dearest  interests  of  society.  They  are  the  centres 
from  which  is  to  radiate  the  future  civilization  of  the  state.  Their 
relation  to  all  the  great  interests  of  man  within  our  borders,  whether 
social  or  individual,  is  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect.  The  regular, 
methodical  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  the  further  elu- 
cidation of  her  laws,  the  development  of  the  mental  power  which 
may  apply  the  deductions  of  science  to  the  arts  of  life,  to  agriculture, 
to  mining,  to  manufactures,  to  commerce;  the  power  to  frame,  to 
expound,  and  to  vindicate  law;  to  investigate  the  diseases  of  the  body 
and  prescribe  for  their  cure;  to  investigate  the  laws  of  mind  and  en- 
force upon  it  the  obligations  and  restraints  of  religion,  these  are  the 
works  of  colleges,  these  are  the  great  interests  of  which  they  are  the 
conservatories.  Society  has  no  higher  interests,  nor  has  individual 
man,  than  those  which  will  be  periled  by  the  neglect  of  colleges, 
dwarfed  by  their  inefficiency,  and  prostrated  by  their  destruction. 
The  intellectual  life  of  the  state  which  neglects  them  is  a  borrowed, 


14 

not  an  independent  life.  It  is  the  life  of  an  embryo,  derived  from  a 
vital  organization  not  its  own.  The  founders  of  this  state  well  un- 
derstood this.  They  did  all  which,  under  the  circumstances,  could 
have  been  expected,  if  not  all  that  was  desirable,  for  the  immediate 
establishment  of  colleges.  They  secured  in  the  original  purchases  of 
territory,  grants  of  lands  for  the  endowment  of  two  universities.  They 
evidently  regarded  colleges  as  legitimate  objects  of  future  legislative 
provision  and  encouragement.  In  the  third  article  of  the  ordinance 
of  1787,  we  have  the  following  language.  "  Religion,  morality  and 
knowledge  being  necessary  to  good  government  and  the  happiness  of 
mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  be  forever  encour- 
aged." The  same  declaration,  with  augmented  strength  of  language, 
is  made  in  the  third  section  of  Art.  8,  of  the  constitution  of  Ohio. 
"  Religion,  morality  and  knowledge  being  essentially  necessary  to 
good  government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the 
means  of  education,  shall  be  forever  encouraged  by  legislative  pro- 
vision, not  inconsistent  with  the  rights  of  conscience." 

There  are  two  questions  connected  with  legislative  provision  and 
encouragement  proper  to  be  bestowed  upon  collegiate  education,  by 
the  state,  which  demand  careful  and  candid  investigation,  at  the  hands 
of  our  legislators.  The  first  is,  what  number  of  collegiate  institutions 
does  the  state  require?  What  number  is  necessary  to  secure  the  diffu- 
sion of  those  principles  of  religion,  morality  and  knowledge,  which  the 
constitution  declares  to  be  essentially  necessary  to  good  government. 
All  beyond  this  number  are  a  drawback,  not  a  help  to  learning.  They 
divide  patronage  and  conflict  with  the  usefulness  of  all.  It  seems  to 
have  been  thought  that  the  power  of  the  legislature  to  limit  the 
number,  is  annihilated  by  sec.  27,  of  our  bill  of  rights,  which  secures  to 
every  association  of  persons,  when  regularly  formed  and  named,  the 
privilege  of  receiving  letters  of  incorporation  to  enable  them  to  hold 
estates,  real  and  personal,  for  the  support  of  their  schools,  acade- 
mies, colleges,  universities,  and  for  other  purposes.  Now  the  point 
which  demands  investigation  is  this:  what  is  the  meaning  of  this 
article,  in  its  application  to  colleges'?  What  is  the  animus  impo- 
nentis?  the  real  intent  of  the  framers  of  this  section  in  our  bill  of 
rights]  Did  they  mean  to  encourage  collegiate  education]  or  to 
bring  it  into  disrepute]  Is  it  or  is  it  not  competent  to  the  legislature 
to  inquire  whether  the  association  applying  for  letters  of  incorpora- 
tion is  in  fact  what  the  name  which  it  has  assumed  imports]  Should 
a  number  of  persons  form  an  association  and  assume  the  name  of  a 
bank,  apply  for  and  obtain  a  charter  endowing  the  organization  with 
all  the  powers  and  privileges  of  a  regular  banking  company,  proceed 


15 

to  issue  paper  and  to  transact  business  whilst  yet  destitute  of  a  far* 
thing  of  capital — entirely  irresponsible,  would  such  an  association  be 
a  bank,  a  real  bank?  or  an  association  of  swindlers'?  Would  the 
legislature  in  granting  it  letters  of  incorporation  confer  a  benefit,  or 
inflict  a  curse  upon  the  commercial  community?  Would  it  meet  or 
thwart  the  intention  of  the  framers  of  our  bill  of  rights]  I  do  not 
make  the  supposition  as  an  illustration  of  facts  actual,  but  only  of 
facts  possible,  in  relation  to  colleges,  under  this  interpretation  of  the 
provisions  of  that  bill.  A  college  is  a  definite  thing.  It  is  under- 
stood throughout  Christendom  to  be  an  institution  possessed  of  a 
body  of  teachers,  of  an  amount  of  books  and  other  apparatus  of  in- 
struction, sufficient  to  secure  to  the  youth  who  resort  to  it  an  educa- 
tion, which  the  republic  of  letters  denominates  liberal;  as  well  as  to 
issue  those  literary  notes  current,  which  certify  the  possession  of  such 
an  education.  Suppose  now  an  association  of  men  should  secure 
from  the  legislature  a  college  charter,  and  then  instead  of  estab- 
lishing a  bona  fide  college,  should  send  out  an  agent  to  hawk  diplomas, 
conferring  them  upon  all  who,  tickled  with  the  titles  of  literature, 
might  be  willing  to  pay  the  price  demanded.  Suppose  again,  another 
association  possessed  only  of  the  menas  of  establishing  an  academy 
or  a  common  school,  and  with  no  earthly  prospect,  which  a  man  of 
sense  would  call  rational,  of  ever  possessing  them,  having  in  like 
manner  obtained  a  college  charter,  should  publish  a  flaming  pro- 
gram of  studies,  and  invite  parents  to  secure  for  their  children  a 
college  education  within  the  walls  of  their  institution.  Would  these 
things  be  honest  or  fraudulent?  And  would  the  legislature  have 
subserved  the  design  of  the  framers  of  our  bill  of  rights  in  lend- 
ing them  its  sanction,  or  would  it,  on  the  contrary,  have  contributed 
to  thwart  it]  I  might  pursue  these  suppositions  further.  They  are 
imaginary  cases  designed  to  raise  the  question  of  the  power  of  the 
legislature  to  protect  the  true  interests  of  collegiate  education  under 
this  section  of  the  constitution.  The  cases  may  not  be  in  esse;  un- 
der the  interpretation  which  seems  to  have  been  given  to  it,  they  are 
at  least  in  posse.  I  do  not  affirm  that  the  cases  exist;  I  affirm  only 
that,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the  term  "  Ohio  college"  has  become 
a  term  of  somewhat  doubtful  significancy;  that  the  literary  scrip  of 
the  state,  like  the  fiscal  scrip  of  some  of  our  sister  sovereignties,  is 
not  always  quite  at  par  at  the  east;  is  sometimes  subjected  to  a 
scrutiny  not  precisely  creditable  to  the  soundness  of  our  institutions. 
In  glancing  atone  of  the  possible  causes  of  this,  I  have  only  been 
indulging  a  dream  of  the  imagination.  I  fear,  however,  that  a  waking 


1G 

review  of  facts  would  oblige  me  to  say  of  it,  as  the  poet  peer  said  of 
his  vision  of  darkness, 

"  I  had  a  dream,  which  was  not  all  a  dream." 

The  second  question,  which  it  appears  to  me,  demands  candid  in- 
vestigation at  the  hands  of  our  legislators  is  this:  Ought  not  the  leg- 
islature to  bring  collegiate  education,  to  a  greater  extent  than  has 
yet  been  done,  within  the  circle  of  interests  which  receive  direct  pe- 
cuniary state  patronage  ]  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  question. 
The  limits  of  this  address  will  not  permit  it.  The  time,  however,  has 
come,  in  which  it  ought  to  be  thoroughly  discussed,  everywhere  before 
the  people,  and  settled.  If  the  representations  of  the  secretary  of 
state,  in  the  report  already  quoted,  are  correct  in  regard  to  the  delin- 
quencies of  the  state,  as  touching  the  construction  of  those  pipes  and 
conduits,  which  are  to  diffuse  through  our  population  the  simplest 
rudiments  of  learning,  how  much  more  emphatically  true  in  regard  to 
the  erection  of  the  reservoirs  of  learning  from  which  these  pipes  and 
conduits  may  be  supplied !  "Although  education,"  says  he,  "  holds 
an  acknowledged  superiority  by  the  professions  of  our  people,  and  in 
intrinsic  merit,  is  unrivaled  by  any  competitor,  yet  it  has  been  ex- 
iled from  an  honorable  companionship  in  the  family  of  state  interests; 
and  has  been  thrown  out  like  a  poor  despised  foundling,  half-clad 
and  half-fed,  to  beg  for  protection.  We  have  claimed  to  regard  it  as 
a  paramount  topic,  and  yet  our  admiring  eye  has  been  caught  by 
some  trifling  interest  of  party  or  policy,  as  in  the  case  of  the  astron- 
omer, who,  while  looking  at  the  sun,  saw  an  animal  of  huge  limbs  and 
immense  bulk  rushing  up  on  one  side  and  soon  overshadowing  and 
darkening  its  whole  surface,  which  however  proved  to  be  only  a  fly 
crossing  the  upper  lens  of  his  telescope." 

This  state  is  perfectly  competent  to  foster  all  the  great  interests 
of  man  within  her  territory;  to  provide  for  the  perpetuation  and  de- 
velopment of  the  higher,  as  well  as  the  minor  element,  in  the  civili- 
zation of  her  citizens.  Let  our  people  be  but  convinced  that  an  en- 
terprise is  necessary,  or  that  it  stands  connected  even  by  a  moderate 
probability  with  the  public  weal,  and  it  will  be  done.  You  need  not 
travel  far  to  find  proof  of  the  ability  and  willingness  of  the  state  to 
make  expenditures  for  the  public  good.  As  you  pass  from  the  doors 
of  this  house,  you  will  behold  the  terminus  of  a  state  work,  con- 
structed at  an  outlay  of  a  million  and  a  half,  which  is  but  a  single 
artery  in  our  system  of  internal  improvements.  In  every  quarter  of 
the  state  you  will  find  evidences  of  the  same  spirit,  in  our  roads  and 
canals  and  bridges  and  dams,  in  our  noble  institutions  for  the  relief 


17 

of  the  maladies  of  suffering  humanity,  in  our  military  system,  in  out* 
for  the  protection  of  society  from  the  depredations  and  assaults 
of  crime.  Here  are  tokens  of  indomitable  energy,  of  unparalleled 
progress  in  a  people  whose  territory,  half  a  century  since,  was  a  wil- 
derness almost  unbroken.  In  which  great  element  of  civilization 
however  has  this  progress  been  mainly  experienced]  Upon  which 
great  class  of  human  interests  have  these  prodigious  expenditures 
been  chiefly  made?  the  internal  or  the  external;  the  physical  or  the 
spiritual?  Has  our  progress  been  chiefly  the  progress  of  society,  or 
the  progress  of  individual  man?  No  answer  is  required  to  these 
questions.  We  have  it  in  the  magnitude  and  splendor  of  our  cities; 
in  the  rapid  development  of  the  sources  of  our  wealth,  and  its  distri- 
bution; in  the  prosperity  of  our  farmers,  our  mechanics,  our  mer- 
chants, of  men  of  every  class  wThose  vocation  relates  to  the  supply 
of  the  physical  wants  of  men.  We  have  it  also  in  the  comparative 
paucity  of  men  among  us  distinguished  in  the  higher  walks  of  liter- 
ature and  science;  we  have  it  in  the  fewness  and  smallness  of  our 
public  libraries  and  scientific  collections.  We  have  it  in  almost  two 
hundred  thousand  of  our  citizens,  every  tenth  man,  woman  and  child 
n  the  territory,  if  the  report  of  our  secretary  of  state  is  to  be  trust- 
3d,  entirely  destitute  of  the  simplest  elements  of  learning.  We  have 
.t  in  county  jails  by  no  means  destitute  of  tenants;  and  in  a  central 
Denitentiary  "better  patronized,"  by  far,  than  any  other  state  institu- 
ion.  Is  then  our  physical  prosperity  a  subject  of  complaint?  By 
10  means.  It  is  a  matter  of  just  pride.  As  in  the  origin  of  Plato's 
maginary  republic,  so  in  the  origin  of  all  states,  the  physical  wants 
)f  man  are  most  pressing,  and  assert  their  claim  to  precedence  in 
ittention.  Let  us  not  forget  however  that  the  precedence,  justly 
onsidered,  is  a  precedence  in  time,  not  in  importance.  Let  us  re- 
nember  too,  that  this  physical  prosperity  has  its  limits.  Mind  is  the 
ource  of  wealth,  not  matter.  It  is  the  source  of  every  physical 
comfort.  The  stream  can  never  rise  above  its  fountain.  The  de- 
elopment  of  external  prosperity  is  limited  by  a  law  as  fixed  as 
ate;  as  inexorable  as  the  lawTs  of  the  universe.  It  is  a  law  of  the 
miverse.  That  law  is  that  every  physical  and  social  development  re- 
hires an  antecedent  and  proportional  development  of  mind.  We  owe 
ur  social  progress  to  the  action  of  cultivated  intellect.  But  we  have 
•een  thriving  upon  borrowed  capital.  Let  us  at  length  pay  our  debts 
o  mind.  Let  us  bethink  ourselves  of  the  more  ample  production  of 
he  radical  element,  in  the  lasting  progress  and  true  glory  of  the  state, 

"What  constitutes  a  state? 

"]Not  high  raised  battlements,  or  labored  mound, 


18 

"Thick  wall  or  moated  gate ; 

"Not  cities  proud  with  spires  and  turrets  crowned, 
"Nor  bays  and  broad  armed  ports, 

"Where,  laughing  at  the  storm,  rich  navies  ride; 
"Nor  starred  and  spangled  courts 

"Where  low  browed  baseness  wafts  perfume  to  pride, 
"No — men,  high-minded  men, 

"With  powers  as  far  above  dull  brutes  endued — 
"In  forest  brake  or  den, 

"As  brutes  excel  cold  rocks  and  brambles  rude ; 
"Men  who  their  duties  know 

"But  know  their  rights,  and  knowing  dare  maintain, 
"Prevent  the  long  aimed  blow, 

"And  crush  the  tyrant  while  they  rend  the  chain : 
"These  constitute  a  state, 

"And  sovereign  law,  that  state's  collected  will, 
"O'er  thrones  and  globes  elate 

"Sits  empress,  crowning  good,  repressing  ill. 
"Smit  by  her  sacred  frown, 

"I'he  fiend  dissension  like  a  vapor  sinks, 
"And  e'en  the  all-dazzling  crown 

"Hides  his  faint  rays  and  at  her  bidding  shrinks." 

In  the  third  place,  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  true  prosperity 
of  our  colleges  is  the  favor  of  our  churches. 

The  relation  existing  between  our  colleges  and  our  churches  is  a 
relation  of  mutual  dependence.  Religion  is  the  natural  ally  of  learn- 
ing. They  are  both  acting  upon  the  same  high  element  of  civiliza- 
tion. They  bless  society  by  blessing  individual  man.  They  secure 
the  progress  of  society  by  securing  the  progress  of  its  individual 
members.  Of  the  Protestant  church  universal,  if  I  may  venture  up- 
on such  an  expression,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  colleges  are  the  right 
hand  of  her  power.  She  was  born  in  the  revival  of  learning.  She 
has  waxed  with  its  triumphs  and  she  would  wane  with  its  fall.  It  is 
a  condition  vital  to  her  existence  that  she  propagate  an  intelligent 
faith.  When  she  ceases  to  do  this  she  has  fulfilled  her  mission.  Ex- 
ternal bond  of  union  she  has  none.  Her  spirit  disavows  all  compan- 
ionship with  the  clamps  and  ligatures  of  a  spiritual  hierarchy.  She 
lives  in  light,  and  by  light.  Her  bond  of  union  is  the  bond  of  life,  i 
It  is  the  vital  circulation  through  all  her  members  of  the  living  ele-  ■ 
ment  of  her  being.  That  element  is  light,  religious  light.  We  may 
have  faith  without  intelligence,  and  intelligence  without  faith.  But 
intelligence  without  faith  is  practical  atheism,  and  faith  without  in- 
telligence w7ill  become  practical  heathenism.  Such  a  religion  may 
have  prodigious  elements  of  power,  but  it  is  the  power  of  frost,  not 
of  fire,  the  power  of  despotism,  not  of  liberty.  Such  a  religion  may 
govern  mind.  It  may  crush  it  with  penances,  and  scare  it  with 
visions  of  purgatorial  fires.     It  may  gird  its  vitals  with  a  strait-jacket 


19 

of  forms.  It  may  bind  it  hand  and  foot  with  the  cords  of  priestly 
pretension.  It  may  emasculate  its  manhood  by  the  worming  inter- 
rogatories of  the  confessional;  by  the  mummeries  of  sacred  relics,  of 
holy  coats  and  true  crosses,  and  patristic  bones;  by  the  splendor  of  its 
mitres,  by  the  glitter  of  its  gewgaws,  by  its  rosaries,  and  incense  and 
images  and  pictures  and  indulgences  to  sin.  Yea,  it  may  administer 
to  it  extreme  unction,  bury  it  in  the  grave  of  superstition,  sprinkle  its 
sepulchre  with  holy  water,  erect  a  cross  over  it,  and  pronounce  it 
blessed.  Then  indeed  is  mind  governed,  governed  effectually,  gov- 
erned to  death.  The  priest  is  the  master  and  the  laic  is  the  slave. 
Such  a  religion  may  require  colleges,  but  it  needs  them  for  heretics, 
not  for  the  faithful,  for  its  priesthood,  not  for  its  people.  It  is  a  plant 
of  darkness.  It  sends  out  its  root  most  rapidly  amid  the  obscurities 
of  popular  ignorance.  It  thrives  most  vigorously  in  the  night  of  mind. 
But  is  there  no  nobler  method  of  subjecting  the  human  soul  to  the 
sway  of  religion  than  this!  Yes.  It  may  be  governed  by  light;  by 
the  inculcation  of  intelligent  views  of  the  laws  of  its  own  being,  and 
Df  its  relations  to  other  minds,  created  and  uncreated,  on  earth  and 
in  heaven.  The  great  condition  of  its  civilization  is  thus  met,  for  the 
law  of  its  government  is  the  law  also  of  its  growth.  The  very  prin- 
ciple which  governs  it  is  the  aliment  of  its  life. 

Here  is  vitality;  here  is  development;  here  is  progress;  here  is 
subjection  to  wholesome  law,  as  well  human  as  divine,  all  secured 
oy  the  propagation  of  one  great  principle — an  intelligent  faith.  That 
principle  is  to  the  Protestant  church,  casque,  buckler  and  sword.  It  is 
ler  munition  of  rocks  and  her  tower  of  refuge.  It  is  her  weapon  of 
Offence  in  the  day  of  battle.  She  can  achieve  no  conquests  without 
It  is  her  very  life.  Strip  her  of  it,  and  she  is  Protestant  no 
onger.  She  may  have  a  name  to  live,  but  she  is  dead.  From  the 
/ery  constitution  of  Protestantism  it  cannot  flourish,  it  cannot  live 
n  an  ignorant  community.  It  will  repel  ignorance,  or  it  will  perish 
tself.  The  whole  history  of  Protestantism  shows  that  its  triumphs 
)ver  sin  and  ignorance  have  gone  hand  in  hand.  Inflame  an  ignor- 
int  community,  anywhere,  with  religious  zeal,  stereotype  its  ignor- 
mce,  prohibit  the  progress  of  intelligence,  and  publish  in  its  ears  the 
Treat  Protestant  doctrine  of  the  right  of  private  interpretation  of  the 
tcriptures,  and  wThat  have  you  done  1  You  have  opened  Pandora's 
dox,  and  no  man  on  earth  can  predict  the  result. 

You  may  have  reproduced  the  peasant  war  of  Thuringia,  the  sedi- 
ious  ravings  of  the  rabble  rout  of  Munster,  the  delirious  visions  of 
he  Fifth  Monarchy  men  of  England,  the  fooleries  of  Millerism,  the 
mpostures  and  crimes  of  Mormonism,  unheard  of  combinations,  it 


20 

may  be,  of  stupidity,  violence,  fanaticism  and  fraud;  you  may  have 
called  into  being  other  Muenzers  and  Bockholts  and  Venners  and 
Matthiases  and  Jo.  Smiths;  Protestantism,  in  any  just  sense  of  the 
term,  you  have  not  propagated,  you  have  not  produced,  and  you  can 
never  thus  produce  or  propagate  it. 

Let  now  the  Protestant  church  in  the  west  survey  her  position  and 
her  work.  That  position  is  no  longer  among  a  homogeneous  peo- 
ple. The  providence  of  God  has  thrown  her  upon  the  great  moral 
battle  field  of  the  world.  If  I  may  borrow  a  grouping  for  the  picture, 
I  would  say,  every  shade  of  political  sentiment,  every  hue  of  religious 
faith,  almost  every  people  on  earth  has  here  its  representatives. 
The  "  New  England  Puritan,"  the  "  Irish  Jesuit,"  the  "English  Mon- 
archist," the  "American  Republican;"  the  "gay  Frenchman,"  the 
"plodding  German,"  the  "voluptuous  Italian,"  the  "law-abiding 
Scotchman,"  the  "passionate  Spaniard,"  the  "calm  Quaker,"  are 
here  thrown  together  and  commixed.  Every  grade  of  intelligence, 
from  the  most  abstruse  learning  to  the  most  unlettered  ignorance, 
and  these  extremes  compounded  with  religious  and  political  preju- 
dices by  no  definite  law,  may  be  here  found.  In  the  midst  of  such  a 
people,  and  surrounded  by  such  influences,  does  the  Protestant  church 
at  the  west  find  herself.  This  is  her  position.  What  now  is  her 
work  1  If  I  were  to  speak  in  keeping  with  the  usual  figure  of  speech, 
to  which  I  have  already  referred,  I  should  say,  conquest.  I  do  not  like 
the  figure.  It  sometimes  makes  a  false  impression.  It  implies  hos- 
tility. It  savors  of  arrogance.  That  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  Protes- 
tant church.  She  is  not  arrogant.  She  claims  no  perfection.  She 
claims  only,  by  the  evolutions  of  Providence,  to  be  in  possession  of 
the  great  principle  of  individual  progress,  the  principle  which,  by  an 
infinite  progression  in  its  action,  of  which  she  has  as  yet  felt  but  the 
beginning,  may  continue  to  purify  her  own  members,  whilst  it  blesses 
the  world.  Protestantism  is  hostile  to  nothing  but  ignorance  and 
sin.  It  regards  the  family  of  man  as  a  mighty  brotherhood;  a  broth- 
erhood  "dissevered  and  belligerent"  now,  but  hereafter  to  be  one 
and  harmonious.  It  aims  to  reunite  the  broken  links  of  fraternity,  to  \ 
disarm  discords,  to  prevent  collisions,  to  neutralize  antipathies.  How 
then  may  the  work  of  the  Protestant  church,  at  the  west,  be  described! 
It  is  not  simple  conservatism;  it  is  not  hostility.  Aggression  that  k 
work  of  necessity  implies,  but  it  is  the  aggression  of  light  and  love.  I 
It  maybe  summed  up  in  one  word,  assimilation;  the  assimilation  of 
foreign  elements  to  its  own  body,  and  of  the  whole  to  Christ.  The  ' 
great  means  by  which  she  is  to  accomplish  it,  the  only  means  by 


21 

which  it  can  ever  be  accomplished,  is  the  propagation  of  an  intelli- 
gent  faith.  If  the  mass  of  mind,  upon  which  this  principle  may  be 
brought  to  act,  in  the  west,  be  surveyed,  it  will  be  found  in  a  state 
most  favorable  to  its  success.  A  mighty,  though  silent,  disruption  of 
the  social  elements  in  Europe  has  precipitated  upon  us  an  avalanche 
of  mind.  But  it  is  not  a  dead  mind,  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of 
old  opinion.  It  is  not  a  paralytic  mind,  smitten  and  shaken  with  the 
palsy  of  despotism.  The  providential  contact  of  heterogeneous  opin- 
ions has  aroused  it  to  intense  action,  to  a  fierce  effervescence.  One 
sentiment  it  possesses  common  to  all  its  parts,  and  only  one,  the  love 
of  civil  liberty.  This  is  the  sentiment,  which  has  summoned  it  from 
the  four  winds  and  made  it  one.  Behold,  in  this,  the  nucleus  of  a  Prot- 
estant crystalization,  ready  formed  to  your  hand.  Behold  the  stand- 
point, upon  which  it  may  plant  its  lever.  Old  opinions  and  preju- 
dices and  affections,  the  product  of  another  hemisphere  and  of  different 
political  and  religious  systems,  opinions  fatal  to  individual  freedom 
and  progress,  may  it  is  true  exist,  in  the  same  bosom,  with  that  love 
of  liberty  which  is  throwing  upon  us  the  fugitive  victims  of  transat- 
lantic despotism.  But  they  can  coexist  only  in  the  absence  of  light; 
just  as  hostile  armies,  to  employ  an  illustration  of  the  bishop  of 
Dublin,  may  unwittingly  encamp  together  in  the  dark.  Let  us  try 
upon  such  minds  the  sun-light  of  the  great  Protestant  principle.  God 
jiever  threw  upon  the  hands  of  any  human  beings  an  enterprise  more 
magnificently  grand,  more  full  of  glorious  promise  to  Christendom  and 
to  man,  than  that,  whose  trumpet-call,  in  this  valley,  summons,  and  it 
should  thrill,  the  slumbering  energies  of  the  Protestant  church.  The 
pulpit,  the  press,  the  school,  the  academy,  the  college, — Protestant 
instruments  all  and  equally.  But  if  that  church  values  the  others, 
let  her  beware  how  she  neglects  the  college.  The  power  of  the 
pulpit  is  a  prodigious  power.  It  is  the  most  august  and  potent  moral 
engine  ever  w7ielded  by  human  hands.  No  other  human  power  can 
compare  with  it.  It  acts  upon  the  profoundest  sympathies  of  hu- 
manity. It  moulds  the  deepest  convictions  of  the  soul.  It  can  bat- 
ter down  thrones  and  it  can  build  them  up.  It  can  undermine  re- 
publics and  it  can  establish  them.  It  presses  upon  mind  as  the  at- 
mosphere presses  upon  matter.  It  acts  upon  society  as  wind  acts 
upon  water,  and,  beyond  any  other  human  power,  it  can  agitate  its 
lowest  depths.  But  it  is  not  the  pulpit  radiating  heat  alone,  it  is 
not  the  pulpit  giving  off  merely  wind,  it  is  the  1L  ht-beaming  pulpit 
only  which  can  penetrate,  assimilate  and  erect  into  a  spiritual  or- 
ganism the  mental  elements  upon  which  it  acts.    If,  without  the 


22 

college,  the  pulpit  can  in  any  sense  be  compared  to  a  sun,  it  is  the 
sun  in  eclipse, 

"shorn  of  its  beams, 
"Shedding  disastrous  twilight. n 

Let  no  denomination  of  Protestant  christians  imagine  that  it  can 
accomplish  its  work  without  the  aid  of  the  college.  It  may  overrun 
territory,  but  it  cannot  hold  it.  It  may  mark  men  with  its  name,  but 
it  cannot  penetrate  them  with  its  spirit.  The  religion  of  true  Prot- 
estantism is  not  a  mere  impulse;  it  is  not  the  transit  of  a  mere  wave 
of  excitement  over  the  mind;  it  is  the  religion  of  intelligence,  the 
religion  of  principle,  the  religion  of  truth,  discussed,  digested,  defend- 
ed, understood.  This  religion  will  stand,  for  it  has  lodged  itself  in 
the  noblest  and  most  enduring  attributes  of  the  soul.  The  next  wave 
of  counter  excitement,  the  next  gust  of  fanaticism,  of  error,  or  temp- 
tation, will  sweep  the  other  away.  To  propagate  a  religion  of  prin- 
ciple the  pulpit  must  be  furnished  with  workmen  who  need  not  be 
ashamed;  men  who  can  grapple  with  mind,  who  understand  its  laws; 
men  who  can  not  only  capture  the  soul,  but  who  can  seize  its  helm 
and  bring  it  into  port,  and  then  anchor  it  forever,  with  cables  of  an 
iron  logic,  upon  the  rock  of  eternal  truth.  The  college  is  the  natural 
ally,  the  necessary  auxiliary  of  the  Protestant  pulpit.  The  same  is 
true  of  its  relation  to  the  press.  It  is  equally  true  of  the  academy 
and  the  school.  Wherever  the  great  principle  of  Protestantism  has 
prevailed,  it  has  prevailed  by  employing  these  agencies.  In  the  very 
nature  of  things,  it  cannot  accomplish  its  blessed  triumphs  without 
them. 

I  hold  it  therefore  as  a  principle  not  to  be  confuted;  that  every 
Protestant  church  is  bound  by  the  law  of  its  existence  to  sympathize 
with  the  college.  The  support  of  the  college  is  just  as  obligatory  as 
the  support  of  the  pulpit.  It  should  place  that  support,  I  do  not  say 
upon  its  list  of  charities,  for  it  needs  other  support  than  mere  pecu- 
niary aid  from  the  church,  but  upon  its  list  of  essential  and  inviola- 
ble duties.  I  do  not  move  the  question  of  the  mode  in  which  the  ex- 
ternal relations  of  the  college  to  the  church  shall  be  adjusted.  On 
this  point  there  may  be  room  for  a  diversity  of  judgment.  With 
some  collegiate  institution,  I  solemnly  believe  every  Protestant 
church  is  bound,  by  the  very  law  of  its  being,  to  sympathize  and  co- 
operate. The  true  prosperity  of  the  one  is  the  measure  of  the  true 
prosperity  of  the  other.  The  church  must  throw  upon  the  college 
the  influence  of  her  prayers.  She  must  breathe  into  it,  her  own  spirit- 
ual life,  else  it  is  not  truly  prosperous.  She  must  throw  into  its  bosom 
her  most  promising  youth,  else  it  cannot  be  truly  prosperous.     She 


2a 

must  be  willing  to  spare,  in  order  to  officer  it,  her  best  and  strongest 
men,  else  it  cannot  be  truly  prosperous.  She  must  provide  them 
with  the  necessary  means  for  disciplining,  developing  and  furnishing 
mind;  with  books,  with  apparatus,  and  with  the  means  of  progress  in 
every  field  of  intellectual  labor,  else  it  cannot  be  truly  prosperous. 
In  a  wTord,  she  must  take  the  college,  with  the  pulpit,  into  her  heart 
of  hearts ;  watch  over  the  welfare  of  both,  with  the  same  unsleeping 
love,  baptize  them  both  with  the  same  spirit,  invoke  upon  them  both 
the  same  blessings,  and  throw  around  them  both  the  shield  of  the  same 
holiness.  The  healthful  action  of  the  college  is  essential  to  popular 
intelligence,  and  popular  intelligence  is  essential  to  Protestantism. 
The  watchword  of  every  Protestant  should  therefore  be,  religion  and 
intelligence.  These  elements  are  to  the  constitution  of  the  Protestant 
church,  what  liberty  and  union  are  to  the  constitution  of  our  country. 
With  a  mere  substitution  of  terms,  I  may  with  equal  emphasis  apply 
to  the  one,  if  indeed  it  is  allowable  to  quote  them  at  all,  the  words 
which  a  great  man  has  employed  in  regard  to  the  other.  I  may  ex- 
press the  fervent  desire,  "  that  my  eyes  may  never  behold  the  banner 
of  the  Protestant  church  bearing  for  its  motto  the  miserable  inter- 
rogatory— what  is  all  this  worth?  nor  those  other  words,  of  delusion 
and  folly,  religion  first  and  intelligence  afterwards ;  but  every  where, 
spread  all  over  in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample 
folds,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to  every  true  Protestant  heart,  re- 
ligion and  intelligence,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable." 

Gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  : 

The  first  presiding  officer  of  the  institution 
committed  to  your  charge  has  been  removed,  by  the  Providence  of 
God,  from  your  service  to  another  sphere  of  usefulness.  He  is  one 
whom  I  honor  as  a  father,  whom  I  love  as  a  man,  and  whom  I  vener- 
ate as  an  able  and  faithful  minister  of  Christ.  Were  my  personal 
relations  to  him  other  than  they  are,  I  "might  speak  with  more  free- 
dom than  would  now  be  proper,  in  bearing  testimony  to  the  self- 
sacrificing  zeal  and  fidelity  with  which  for  ten  years  he  discharged 
the  duties  of  the  office  to  which  you  had  called  him.  In  resigning  that 
office,  he  acted  in  obedience  to  a  necessity  which  he  considered  im- 
perative. But  whilst  the  reasons  of  the  step  have  commended  them- 
selves to  your  judgment  and  received  your  sanction,  I  doubt  not  that 
you,  that  this  community,  that  all  the  friends  of  the  institution,  will 
sympathize  with  me  in  expressing  a  feeling  of  deep  regret  for  hia 
loss.  His  love  for  the  college,  however,  and  his  confidence  in  it* 
success  remain  unabated,  and  no  one  regrets  more  deeply  than  him- 


24 

self  his  inability  to  be  present  to-day,  in  order  to  give  expression  to 
these  sentiments,  and  to  bid  a  final  and  affectionate  farewell  to 
yourselves,  to  his  brethren  in  the  ministry,  and  to  a  community 
among  whom  he  has  so  long  labored  and  prayed,  and  from  whom  he 
has  received  so  many  tokens  of  approbation  and  respect. 

In  assuming  the  post  to  which  you  have  seen  lit  to  call  me,  having 
been  already  for  thirteen  years  in  your  service,  I  have  little  to  say,  per- 
sonal to  myself,  save  that  in  consenting  to  be  transferred  to  it,  from 
a  more  secluded  sphere  of  labor,  as  grateful  to  my  taste  and  feelings, 
as  it  was  better  suited  to  my  capacities,  I  have,  perhaps  unwisely, 
obeyed  the  judgment  of  others  rather  than  my  own;  and  I  now  ap- 
proach its  solemn  responsibilities  with  faltering  footsteps  and  a 
trembling  heart. 

I  believe  the  college  to  have  been  established  upon  correct  prin- 
ciples, and  in  obedience  to  unmistakable  indications  of  the  Provi- 
dence of  God.  I  believe  therefore  that  it  will  live,  and  accomplish 
a  work  of  high  beneficence  to  man.  I  have  been  present  and  wit- 
nessed your  management  of  the  institution  from  its  origin.  That 
management,  as  a  whole,  has  my  most  hearty  approbation.  You 
have  ever  aimed  to  make  it,  in  fact,  what  it  professed  to  be. 
You  did  not  call  it  a  college,  by  name,  till  it  possessed,  in  reality, 
all  the  necessary  attributes  of  such  an  institution.  And  in  giving 
it  these  attributes,  none  who  have  not  been  engaged  in  a  similar  work, 
can  fully  appreciate  the  anxieties,  the  expenditure  of  time,  the  men- 
tal labor,  and  the  pecuniary  sacrifice  to  which  you  have  been  subject- 
ed. The  trial  has  been  severe.  It  has  been  long  protracted,  and  it 
is  not  yet  terminated.  But  faint  and  fatigued,  though  you  may  be, 
you  will  not  abandon  it.  When  Zeuxis  was  asked,  why  he  was  so 
long  in  painting  a  picture,  he  replied,  I  paint  in  along  time,  and  for 
a  long  time.  Gentlemen,  I  know  you  do  not  forget,  you  never  will 
forget,  that  you  are  laying  colors  upon  the  canvass  of  time  to  be 
gazed  at  by  posterity.  The  men  of  the  present  may  not  be  fully  ap- 
preciate your  labors;  but  the  men  of  the  future  will  bless  them. 
They  who  are  laboring  judiciously  and  successfully  to  found  a  college 
upon  correct  principles  and  with  large  and  sober  views,  are  leaving 
"foot-prints  on  the  sands  of  time;"  foot-prints  pointing  towards 
heaven,  which  the  lapse  of  a  single  generation  will  harden  into  im- 
perishable rock. 

What  nobler  indications  of  having  lived,  lived  usefully,  lived  for 
man,  lived  for  God,  can  any  man  leave  behind  him,  than  you,  and 
those  who  are  co-operating  with  you,  are  now  tracing,  not  upon  the 
stony  pages  of  the  earth's  strata,  but  upon  the  adamantine  leaves  of 


human  civilization.  Neither  the  review  of  the  past,  nor  the  aspect 
of  the  present,  should  discourage  us.  If  our  progress  has  been  slow, 
there  has  been  progress  still.  And,  all  things  considered,  it  has  not 
been  slow.  In  thirteen  years,  the  institution  under  your  care  has 
risen  from  a  simple  school  to  a  college,  which  in  the  annual  average 
of  its  graduates,  I  believe,  ranks  as  second  in  the  state.  It  can  point 
already  to  a  goodly  company  of  alumni.  Their  sympathies  are  with 
you  in  your  work.  I  can  see,  in  this  audience,  the  familiar  faces  of 
many  of  them,  who  have  made  their  annual  pilgrimage  to  greet  the 
mother  whom  they  love,  and  to  receive  afresh  her  blessing.  God 
of  that  mother,  bless  them  one  and  all ! 

The  sympathy  of  the  people  of  this  r.ommilT1ity  js  with  you.     They 
have  given  you  a  recent  and  noble  demonstration  of  it.     The  rising 
walls  of  yonder  edifice  present  a  monument  of  that  sympathy,  a  sym- 
pathy none  the  less  cheering  that  it  was  self-prompted.  Am  I  wrong 
in  saying  that  I  know  the  people  of  Washington  county  too  well  not 
to  believe,  that  in  another  year,  an  iron  tongue  from  its  conspicuous 
tower,  will  proclaim,  every  hour  in  the  twenty  four,  that  this  noble 
and  much  needed  work  of  charity  is  complete?     The  sympathies  of 
the  good  and  benevolent  throughout  the  land,  so  far  as  a  correct 
knowledge  of  your  labors  and  plans  has  extended,  are  with  you.     I 
surely  need  only  recall  to  your  mind  the  humble  offerings  of  multi- 
tudes of  true  hearted  friends,  the  noble  charities  of  a  Train,  a  Wil- 
liams, a  Williston,  without  which  your  undertaking  would  long  since 
have  perished,  to  beget  in  you  the  assurance  that  the  finger  of  God  is 
touching  and  will  touch  other  hearts;  that  in  addition  to  the  benefac- 
tors whom  he  has  already  given  to  your  enterprise  at  the  west,  whose 
names,  for  fear  of  misconstruction,  I  forbear  to  mention,  he  will  call 
other  servants  of  his  to  your  support,  just  as  many  and  just  as  mu- 
nificent as  its  true  interests  shall  require;  that  he  can  and  will,  if 
need  be,  summon  to  your  aid,  even  from  our  own  state,  the  Law- 
rences and  Willistons  and  Appletons  of  the  west. 
^   By   a  recent  appointment  you  have   filled   the   chair  of  chem- 
istry and  the  natural  sciences  with  one  who,  I  doubt  not,  will  prove 
himself  a  diligent  and  successful  laborer  in  the  field  of  science,  and 
an  acquisition  and  honor  to  the  college.     With  the  single  exception 
of  the  department  of  rhetoric,  whose  duties,  for  the  present,  can  be 
easily  distributed,  the  remaining  chairs  of  the  several  professorships 
are  now  filled,  filled  with  men  sincerely  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  institution,  with  men  whose  hearts  are  bound  together  by  the 
sympathies  of  a  long  companionship  of  labor  in  your  service,  by  a 
friendship  of  mutual  confidence  never,  for  a  moment,  interrupted  by 


2G 

a  jar;  men  whom  I  know,  and  honor,  and  whose  zeal  and  ability, as 
teachers,  have  ever  commanded  my  most  sincere  respect. 

Well  indeed  do  I  understand  that  the  means  to  meet  the  necessary 
expenditures  of  such  an  establishment  are  not  now  at  your  command. 
But  remember  the  Orphan  House  of  Halle.  Remember  the  prayers 
of  Francke.  They  are  at  the  command  of  that  God  for  whose  glory 
in  this  enterprise  you  are  laboring.  Courage,  then,  honored  fathers. 
Courage,  beloved  brethren.  We  may  not  live  to  see  the  college  re- 
lieved from  all  pecuniary  embarrassments.  The  sun  of  life  of  the 
youngest  in  the  boards  of  trust  and  instruction  is  already  burning 
in  mid-heaven;  and  those  of  the  elder  already  project  around  them 
the  shadows  of  evening  from  the  mountains  of  death.  We  shall  not 
live  to  see  the  institution  reach  even  the  zenith  of  its  usefulness — 
but  let  us  have  faith  in  God,  and  rest  assured  that  neither  shall  we 
live  to  see  it  perish. 

"  Let  us  then  be  up  and  doing, 
"  With  a  heart  for  any  fate; 
"  Still  achieving,  still  pursuing, 
"  Learn  to  labor  and  to  wait." 


ERRATA. 

On  page  7,  in  the  5th  line  from  the  top,  for  "sow"  read  sew. 

On  page  12,  in  the  19th  line  from  the  bottom,  for  "that  a  poet," 
read  than. 

On  page  13,  in  the  11th  line  from  the  top,  for  "whenever"  read 
where  ever. 

On  page  15,  in  the  20th  line  from  top,  for  "menas"  read  means. 


K>1 

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Ol  = 


